The Avalanche are placing captain
Gabriel Landeskog, who has been out with a lower-body injury, on injured reserve retroactive to Nov. 15 when he last played and scored an empty-net goal in a 4-1 win against Los Angeles.
Landeskog, who has four goals and four assists in 15 games, hasn't skated since Friday and will miss his seventh game Thursday when the Avalanche (9-11-1) play Columbus (12-5-4) at the Pepsi Center.
Coach
Jared Bednar said after practice Wednesday that the team is "exploring" the possibility of calling up "a guy or two" from AHL San Antonio "and trying to get some of that energy and passion into our lineup."
They summoned center
Samuel Henley and
Gabriel Bourque.
Henley, 23, is a 6-4, 210-pound center signed as a free agent in May 2014. He's never played in the NHL. He had one goal and three assists in 19 games with the Rampage.
Bourque, 26, has two goals and three assists in 11 games with the Rampage. He began the season with the Avalanche and didn't have a point in five games.
As for Landeskog: "I don’t want to say he’s not day to day still,” Bednar said. “I’m hoping he’s more day to day than week to week. But now we have the ability to put him on IR retroactive and he can come off at any time."
Also, right wing
Jarome Iginla didn't practice Wednesday, taking a maintenance day. Bednar said he was sore after the Avalanche's 5-3 loss to Nashville on Tuesday.
"He got banged up a little bit last night,” Bednar said. “He took a shot in the ankle, I think, and a stick in the back. He’s a guy that’s been playing hard for us and we want him ready for the game, that’s the important thing, so he took today’s practice off.”
Semyon Varlamov will start in goal for the first time since Nov. 23 when he allowed five goals on 40 shots in a 6-3 loss to Edmonton. The Avalanche gave up four unanswered goals in the third period that night.
Calvin Pickard acknowledged after Tuesday's loss that he didn't have his best game, allowing five goals on 33 shots, though his defense betrayed him more than once.
Bednar also made a couple of line changes in practice, moving center
Carl Soderberg to the fourth line with
Joe Colborne and
Cody McLeod. Soderberg began Tuesday's game with
Mikhail Grigorenko and
Matt Duchene, but he also saw time with McLeod and
Andreas Martinsen.
Duchene was with Grigorenko and
Blake Comeau on Wednesday, while little-used defenseman
Eric Gelinas took Iginla's spot with Martinsen and
John Mitchell.
The
Mikko Rantanen-Nathan MacKinnon-Rene Bourque line remained intact. Rantanen and Bourque each had a goal and an assist against the Predators. MacKinnon had seven shots. Bourque, who came to camp on a professional tryout, has a team-leading eight goals.
"Depending on what happens later today, we're bound to have some changes in our lineup," Bednar said, referring to expected call-ups from the Rampage.
Among other things, Bednar said there were "too many passengers" Tuesday, and he expects to see more passion and fire from this team.
"Like I said last night, I can't help but feel we have a little more to give," Bednar said. "We made some big mistakes that gave them some easy goals, and other teams aren't doing that for us. We're having to work for every goal we get, and they're hard to come by.
"I think we have a little more urgency that we can play with, that's probably the best word to use, at times during the game. I wasn't feeling that last night from our group, so I was a little frustrated."
I asked if he meant effort, execution, or both.
"For me, it was more effort," he said. "I didn't mind our attention to detail and our execution at times. (The Predators) are a good team, so there's going to be teams that break up what you're trying to do. I just want to see our team kind of get that snarl on and dig in a little bit when games are on the line.
"We've done it at times, but last night starting a new 10-game segment for us, starting game 21 and knowing where we're at in the standings and the way the first 20 games went, it's time to start seeing a little more from our group as a whole."
The Avalanche have gone 0-2-1 in the first three games of a five-game homestand, and are 4-6-1 at the Pepsi Center for the season.
"We've squandered a little bit of an opportunity here with three home games and only have one point to show for it," Bednar said. "We have two more at home, and the road doesn't get any easier. We have a Columbus team coming in here that's on top of its game. They're rolling, and they're a hard team to handle. They play with speed and they come at you hard, and then it's Dallas (on Saturday) and that's an important division game."
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